Landslip warps train tracks and causes rail disruption in Yorkshire

Rail passengers are experiencing major delays in South Yorkshire after a landslip left train tracks warped.

The line between Doncaster, Goole, and Scunthorpe was closed after a 'spoil tip' - coal mining waste material - from Hatfield Colliery slid under the track and started pushing it up.

Civil engineers are working to discover what caused the spill, but one initial theory is heavy rainfall.

The pit is managed by Hargreaves Services, whose spokesman said the civil engineering experts were conducting an assessment to work out the cause and the best solution, according to the Daily Mail.

Network Rail says buses have replaced a number of services between Doncaster and Goole, and Doncaster and Scunthorpe.

A spokesman told This Is Scunthorpe: "We have been carefully monitoring the track near Hatfield colliery at Stainforth since Saturday afternoon (9 February) when a train driver reported a "rough ride".

"Train services in the area have been carefully managed to protect safety.

"Unfortunately, conditions have deteriorated and it is no longer possible to run services through the area.

"We anticipate that there will be disruption to services between Doncaster and Goole and Doncaster and Scunthorpe for some time.

"Our engineers are working with the colliery to plan the safe repair of the track bed and railway once the spoil heap has been stabilised.

"We understand it will take several days to complete the stabilisation work. At this stage it is not possible to say when direct rail services will resume.

"We will publish a timescale for the works as soon as possible and apologise to passengers for the inconvenience caused."

Rachel Lowe from Network Rail told the BBC: "This is an absolutely enormous task. We will have to re-lay the whole area.

"Our engineers have been at Hatfield Colliery throughout this event and are dealing with their experts. They obviously have to stop this movement before we can do anything about restoring the railway."

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This is not the fault of the railway, what a load of rubbish. The railway has track maintence people who should be looking at this sort of thing to prevent it happening. I suppose the fare paying passenger will have their rail fares put up to pay for the damage. Oh sorry that has already happened hasn't it.

This is not the fault of the railway ,a spoil heap close to the trackbed was the cause with all the rain recently it looks as the spoil has sank into soggy ground and pushed up the trackbed which seems to have been the easy route,even if it takes months to repair maybe people will then appreciate railways a bit more and the things that can go wrong that are not always there fault

Year on year the train fares are raised above inflation to "ALLOW FOR INVESTMENT IN THE RUNNING OF THE RAILWAYS". What a load of horse **** that is. Why was this not anticipated? Where are the engineers who are supposed to be keeping track (excuse pun) on the state of the environment?

Its not the fault of the rail companies that this has happened. Would you blame them if a meteor crashed on the track and destroyed it?? Granted rail fares are expensive, but other factors are to blame for that, greedy directors/shareholders etc. Can't blame them for this one.